Monday, January 10, 2011

The insect problem in the wood furniture

The wood furniture and wood product are high risk to get problem with insect. There are many insects such as: termites, bug, beetles, ant, etc. like to eat or grow in the wood. The wood which is not processed properly will be very vulnerable to be attacked by the wood-eating insects. There are some wood type such as: mahogany, mango, bamboo, rattan, and fruit wood are high risk to get attacked by insects. Some types of wood such as: teak, pine, sengon, and other oily wood are unpopular for insects. They are relative safe from the problem of wood-eating insects, but most of wood and wood products are high risk of insect attacked. This wood-eating insect will surely cause serious problem for the furniture or other wood products. The products are eaten by insects will be perforated, damaged and destroyed. Therefore, no matter how good is the product looked it become useless thing. It is also rather difficult to see the insect attacked in the wood furniture until it appears. The insect attacks may emerge in the long span time after the wood was processed. The wood insects problem may appear soon after the wood is dry or long time after. The wood-eating insect problem may be found at the beginning of process making furniture in the wood component, or when the furniture has been finished, or even when the furniture is in the show room or even when the furniture is used. Insects could have left eggs on the tree when he grew and the egg will hatch and eat the wood from the inside after a certain time. The insects also could come to the dry timber or even the finished product when products are used. The existence of the thick layer of finishing even can not guarantee that the wood product will be free from the insect attacking.The problem of wood destroyed insect has to be anticipated and in wood furniture industry. The fact that the existence of the insects in this wood product can not be identified until it appears in the furniture products makes this problem become more difficult. When the problem occurs, it may be already too late, since the furniture is already broken or too difficult to be fixed. The best ways to anticipate the wood insect problem is to do the proper treatment in the wood working process.

sawn timber are dipped in the tank before go to the kiln dry

Here are some methods to overcome the problem of insects in wood furniture.

Cutting the trees in the right time.

This method is the most natural way and environmentally friendly. This method is done by traditional people when they want to cut the trees. The nature forest people always consider the season when cut the trees. It turns out that timber which are cut in certain months is much more durable and free from insect attack. The insect such as bugs or even termites do not eat the wood or bamboos that are harvested in right seasons. It is actually the best way of collaboration of the human with nature. But now this method is very difficult to be implemented. The demands of the timber industry will not allow the timber plantation to conduct logging only in the certain month every year. The woodworking industry requires a continuous supply every day. Thus the wood cutting should be done every day to feed the need in the woodworking industry.

Wood treatment in the sawn timber.

This process is the most widely used in the wood timber industry today. The wet sawn timber are dipped in anti insect chemicals solution before go to the oven for drying process. The chemicals will soak to the wood and preserve the wood from the insect. This process is highly recommended and become a standard in the timber industry, especially for the high insect attacked risk wood.

The treatment when the wood is dry.

Sometimes the wood has not been treated in the sawn timber process. This may be happened when we buy furniture or dry wood from suppliers that can not be guaranteed the treatment in the cutting and drying process. In this case we still can apply an anti insect chemical to the dry wood. The anti insect chemical can be brushed or sprayed or pour to the dry wood component, or the unfinished furniture product. But the chemical application in the dry wood should consider the next process. The chemical solution should be used the chemical that is not interfere with the next finishing process. The water chemical solution also should be avoided since it will make the dry wood become wet again.

This treatment process can also be done on the finished furniture product. The anti insect solution can be brushed to the finished furniture product until it wet and get into the wood to stop the attack of wood-eating insects. The chemical should be chosen that is not interfere the finishing layer. The application of this chemical should be done carefully since anti insect material is a toxic material that could cause health problems for the furniture users.

Fumigation

Fumigation is also already a common standard operational in the furniture industry especially when the furniture product are exported to other country. The finished furniture products are the object for fumigation before shipped for the destination country. The fumigation is done by flowing a poisonous gas to the container to kill the insect or other animal in the product. The fumigation actually is not very effective, because it will only killed the insect which are life at the time of fumigation, but once the gas is run out then the furniture products still have a high risk of insect attacked. The fumigation also don't kill the bug's egg, if there any eggs inside, they will hatch and grow to make the wood problems.